In sports casts, newsrooms and locker rooms, there have been a lot of jokes thrown around about the mysterious girlfriend of Manti Te’o, a senior linebacker at the University of Notre Dame and the 2012 runner-up for the Heisman Trophy.
So what is the story behind this Te’o hoax?
The timeline is a long and complicated one. In short, Lennay Kekua was an invented woman that shared a “cyber relationship” with Te’o. Though the two never actually met (obviously because she never existed) the two exchanged emails and phone calls frequently and became very close.
Back in September of last year, Te’o received news that his “girlfriend” died of leukemia. On that same day, his grandmother also died. Te’o spent months grieving only to find out that the woman he loved was fabricated. According to Notre Dame athletic director Jack Swarbrick, Te’o was at the ESPN College Football Awards show on Dec. 6 when he received a phone call from his girlfriend’s phone number with what he recognized as her voice, claiming she was not dead. At that point, he knew something was wrong and informed his parents during a trip home to Hawaii between the Heisman Trophy ceremony and Notre Dame’s bowl practices.
USA Today explains that Kekua was the alias of one or more people who duped Te’o. Police began their investigation into Kekua by looking for a death certificate and came up with nothing. Stanford, the school in which she claimed she attended, did not have records of Kekua as a student. Other online background checks found no evidence that a person named Lennay Kekua even exists. There was also no public obituary or funeral notice in newspapers after her “death” in September. In essence, it seems she was a figment of someone’s imagination.
Te’o was a victim of catfishing. Catfishing is the process of developing a fake online persona with the express purpose of deceiving a love-struck significant other. In Te’o’s case, the people behind Lennay Kekua were participating in “catfishing.”
A lot of people have raised the question wondering if Te’o was a part of the hoax. USA Today has statements by Te’o and Notre Dame strongly stating that he is the victim. Deadspin, a sports reporting cast, connected the profile photo on Kekua’s Twitter account to an unnamed woman, who claims the picture came from her former classmate Ronaiah Tuiasosopo, who is known to be friends with Te’o. Multiple people told Deadspin that Tuiasosopo, a 22-year old cousin of former Oakland Raiders quarterback Marques Tuiasosopo, created Kekua and used the name to lure others into online relationships. The twist is that Te’o and Ronaiah Tuiasosopo are known to be friends and have interacted publicly on social media. Deadspin uncovered a since-deleted Tweet from Tuiasosopo about spending time with Te’o in November before Notre Dame’s game at USC.
It is apparent that this bizarre fraud must undergo thorough investigation
“This is incredibly embarrassing to talk about, but over an extended period of time, I developed an emotional relationship with a woman I met online. We maintained what I thought to be an authentic relationship by communicating frequently online and on the phone, and I grew to care deeply about her. To realize that I was the victim of what was apparently someone’s sick joke and constant lies was, and is, painful and humiliating. It further pains me that the grief I felt and the sympathies expressed to me at the time of my grandmother’s death in September were in any way deepened by what I believed to be another significant loss in my life. I am enormously grateful for the support of my family, friends and Notre Dame fans throughout this year. To think that I shared with them my happiness about my relationship and details that I thought to be true about her just makes me sick. I hope that people can understand how trying and confusing this whole experience has been. In retrospect, I obviously should have been much more cautious. If anything good comes of this, I hope it is that others will be far more guarded when they engage with people online than I was. Fortunately, I have many wonderful things in my life, and I’m looking forward to putting this painful experience behind me as I focus on preparing for the NFL Draft.” – Manti Te’o’s statement
